Editor's note:

The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization has
issued a stunning report on global warming. Livestock production is
responsible for more climate change gasses than all the motor vehicles in
the world. In total, it is responsible for 18 percent of human induced
greenhouse gas emissions. It is also a major source of habitat loss, soil
erosion, water depletion, and pollution from pesticides and animal waste.

In addition to this report there was also the North American based study
by two Canadian scientists at the University of Chicago which concluded that
more greenhouse gases (about 1.5 tons) were saved by switching from the
standard American meat-centered diet to a vegan diet than by switching from
a typical gas-guzzling car to a Prius (about 1.0 tons).

29 November 2006 – Cattle-rearing generates more global warming
greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation, and
smarter production methods, including improved animal diets to reduce
enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, are urgently needed,
according to a new United Nations report released today.

“Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most
serious environmental problems,” senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) official Henning Steinfeld said. “Urgent action is required to remedy
the situation.”

“The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by
one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present
level,” it warns.

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the
livestock sector accounts for 9 per cent of CO2 deriving from human-related
activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse
gases. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has
296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from
manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 per cent of all human-induced methane
(23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive
system of ruminants, and 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes
significantly to acid rain.

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy
products every year, the report notes. Global meat production is projected
to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million
tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million
tonnes.

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural
sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and
contributes about 40 per cent to global agricultural output. For many poor
farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable
energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their
crops.

Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly
permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land
used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are
cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation,
especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 per cent of former
forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20
per cent of pastures considered degraded through overgrazing, compaction and
erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate
policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing
desertification.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s
increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to
water pollution from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from
tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.

Beyond improving animal diets, proposed remedies to the multiple problems
include soil conservation methods together with controlled livestock
exclusion from sensitive areas; setting up biogas plant initiatives to
recycle manure; improving efficiency of irrigation systems; and introducing
full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to discourage large-scale
livestock concentration close to cities.

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